The SOMA Iceberg: A Deep Dive 

"Imagine sleeping on a seat, then waking up to find yourself as a god damn door" This game doesn't fuck around

it's crazy to think that the first Simon doesn't even know about the events of soma at all

One thing that you didn’t mention about the ending is that for the entire game the player is moving from one Simon’s perspective to the next: at the start of the game from 1 to 2 which you then play as for a majority of the game. Then from 2 to 3 to go deeper with the pressure suit. But then finally, at the end of the game, the player has been conditioned to think they will go now from Simon 3 to Simon 4 on the ARK but it’s the first time in the game that the perspective doesn’t change. I think this makes Simon 3’s frustration at the end of the game much more relatable to the player since they too are expecting the perspective to shift again. Although they do eventually show Simon 4’s perspective on ARK afterwards

10:28 Because of the 'coin toss' metaphor. It's not a coin toss, it's just that new Simon has the memories of old simon, meaning from HIS perspective he 'won' the cointoss and transferred over, when that's not how it works.

Simon had difficulty understanding the difference between "Copy" and "Move". Then again, it is an outstanding situation to be in.

A correction. WAU did not attempt to interfere with Ross' plan to kill it. The electromagnetic disturbance began when Omicron staff retrieved Ross from the climber. Since initial electromagnetic disturbance was huge, the staff placed the body into a glass contamination container. Since WAU needs strong electric surges to calibrate the gel and manipulate it, it started overcharging the whole Omicron, so the structure gel inside the tubes would rush to the glass container and repair the body. Julia Dahl correctly guessed that once Ross reaches 100%, the disturbance will stop. Unfortunately for them, the amount of it was far, far too much. Basically WAU only wanted to repair Ross' body but it couldn't do it without strong electrical charges inside the container, so it had to increase the general charge. It killed everyone as a result. Probably it was either unaware of what would happen or in its understanding it was fine with corpses without heads, as long as it had structure gel to reanimate and sustain them.

I like to think that Simon was the wau’s final step in preserving humanity. That Simon launching the arc was always the ultimate goal of the wau, always stumbling towards this end along the way.

The AI is much more in line with real AI tech, not the Superminds we see in Movies. We gave the AI the task to prevent human death, and that is exactly what it did. Perfectly. If someone is suffering, or unable to move, or wants to die isn't part of the task we humans gave it. It found the best way to prevent as much death as possible. It did exactly as asked. Nothing more, nothing less. And that is a real danger of AI, doing exactly what we want it to, but Humans not making the task clear enough.

The revelation that your mind was not being moved, but copied, genuinely freaked me out, caused me to experience existential dread and actually gave me a bit of nausea at the time. It really messed with my head. Probably one of the most horrifying moments i've ever experience in any form of media.

Soma's audio talking about war in the surface might seem like cut content about when the apocalypse plot was about war in the surface, but one might interpret it in the sense that the chaos from the comet led to the remaining survivors entering in conflict and riots to survive Which, in a setting like SOMA, it's weirdly hopeful. It implies that there are people still alive in the surface, and as a result there's hope that humanity can survive

Cathrine had put Simon to sleep for a couple of reasons.. It would have been painful for simon 1 to suddenly be alone, and the two simons might have fought each other if one was obviously going to progress and the other had to stay on that level. Secondly; It would have been a strain on resources for both simons to try and progress or work together. There was no way for Simon 1 to get down there.. She wanted to keep a divide between the simons to make the wound easier.

I also think Cathrine kinda manipulated Simon, but I don’t think she did it intentionally or maliciously. She might‘ve put Simon II to sleep in order to just not upset Simon III, because she isn’t really comfortable in dealing with his (understandable) emotions. Also Simon is her only hope. If he gets too upset to continue, she‘s kinda f*cked. Of course she would do everything in her power to not let that happen. I honestly can’t really blame her…

Absolutely love that people still talk about this masterpiece! Thank you for the video!

There is an underlying theme surrounding the player choices: Let it live in a crippled state, or end its misery. Every choice is like this. They are each a smaller version of the final choice with the Wau. The way you felt about all the previous choices will inform what you will feel about this huge choice. Do you leave life on Earth in a crippled state, or end all life for good.

Soma is right up there w Silent Hill 2 for some of the best thought-provoking horror ever made. It is so grounded and feels Simon feels so relatable. I remember hearing about the continuity and the coin toss and thinking it sounds fishy but not knowing exactly why till thinking about it more.

18:46 An autoinjector is usually something like an EpiPen which allows an untrained individual to administer medication directly into the body, usually through a needle. They're preferred for untrained persons since the mechanism is spring loaded which means you just press it against your thigh after taking off the safety and it'll administer the medication, removing the chance for breaking the needle inside the person. I can only imagine that the black box is something similar but you stick the injector in the back of your neck.

Just to be clear the game's perspective never "shifts", breaking some rule, the entire game (excluding post credits scene) is through the perspective of Simon III, from the waking moment in Toronto to the space gun launch you are playing as Simon III, he is the only one with the lived experience of all the events of the game.

One thing I’ve always had in mind with Soma was Theta, specifically the imagery of the site. The imagery goes in line with “the mouth of the beast” as when opening the main entrance, the doors dramatically open like a mouth swallowing you in. With this imagery in mind, you can piece together the literal human body with Theta. With the first floor of Theta being the mouth with there being little to no grime anywhere if you brush your teeth of course. There isn’t a single dead body on the first floor not counting the servers room with the stray proxy. Once you get to the second floor, it will take the imagery of the throat/stomach it seems. With dead bodies sparingly littered around the area and of course my boy Terry Akers. There are quite a bit of fleshy piles littered across this section, indicating why it would be the stomach as we ourselves dissolve our food with little bits of it sometimes getting stuck in the throat and stomach. Finally, you get to the 3rd floor that I always forget the name of. Going off the imagery, it’s the Pancreas and intestines with piles of fleshy mass everywhere and dead bodies littered in every single corner too. It’s pretty obvious that this system is the intestines etc with these factors. Finally, you get to the tubes in Theta where we, Simon, leave this section of the game. Now I could be wrong about the intestines, with this section being either the larger or small intestine. I mean they’re literally a maze of tubes connecting to all the sites seemingly showing us they are the intestines. But other than these factors, the end of the tubes is the anus, where finally the imagery of Theta is done. It’s a very interesting way of thinking what these sites and obviously Theta in particular show us how much work was put in to the game. I mean going off this imagery it’s obvious links to humanity, which is what the game is built around. I’ve just always wanted to talk about this subject since I’ve never seen ANYONE talk about this amazing imagery in the game. Like I said before, there could be other hints of imagery at other sites in the game, but I got midterms so I can’t check those out yet. If you’re reading this really long comment, thanks for taking a read buddy. Do tell me your other thoughts about the game or we can debate about this stuff together.

Catherine did manipulate Simon but it was what she had to do. The fact that she tried to not explain it to Simon the first time she copied him just shows that she knew that Simon would not accept it, the same way that other people who were copied in the game would freak out and would try to kill their copies.

Techically killing the WAU is better outcome, because it could infect the fishes. Humanity might be lost, but the underwater creatures will exist. It's like a new era for the world. As for Catherine being less shy, could be due to the fact she speaking behind a screen, many people have more confidence speaking behind a screen and not in person.

I love this game and the psychology behind it. I would not decide to kill my copies and when he is alone at the end, I would go back to them and think about reviving the base and probably make Carthrine repair

I also talked about SOMA since I noticed lots of people don't get the creepiness of the plot. Catherine first started honestly, then became vague, then actively hid the truth from Simon. She is putting her wants above Simon's needs. The game shifting perspective makes you, the player, 'forget' the rule of copying and assume it will continue shifting minds which never happened. Peak existential horror.

6:00 You know, I always say the weakest part of Soma is that it "cheats" a bit by swapping the player's perspective to a new Simon. But this made me reconsider that thought. It almost has to happen that way to really get the existential conundrum across.

I love how both the ARC and the WOW basically does the same thing, uploading and trapping consciousnesses in a virtual reality paradise.

Great. Now I have the Iron Lung and the SOMA Icebergs with the greatest most tranquilizer voice to listen to while falling asleep! btw. Love your vids, keep it going man

This is my favorite game and its nice to see someone doing a in-depth dive of all the little details in the game, I always felt there was a lot of little clues left for the players to do detective work on. Here are some of my thoughts: 1.) Sarang's whole theory is based on idea that because your cells are constantly being replace, therefore they cannot be where your consciousness is held. The big problem though, is that where your consciousness is being held, your neurons, actually don't get replaced and do stay with you for your entire lifespan and when you do lose them it can affect your persona. 2.) The Dunbat had a female voice, so it couldn't have been any of the ones you listed. 3.) Catherine definitely manipulated Simon by telling him that the copying was like a coin toss, and she knew how Simon was since lambda when he was talking deleting himself. I think Simon didn't want to believe that he wouldn't be carry over to the ark. 4.) I think that Catherine's theory about Simon being part human and part machine being the reason why he isn't insane like the other is wrong. Catherine's theory doesn't explain why she isn't insane and she is 100% machine, and in the beginning we saw that Simon didn't want to believe that he was a robot, and when he looked at himself in the pilot chair he saw his human hands. My theory, is that both Simon and Catherine are actually Mockingbirds just like Carl Semken. The reason why they are not delusional is because at some point the illusion was shattered for them. For Simon, when he was placed into a situation where the human Simon couldn't possibly survive(at Uplision when the communication room got flooded) that's when the illusion was broken and then he was able to see his actual self. 5.) When Ross and his group were heading toward the climber, his colleague was killed by the Anglerfish. If you listen to the logs, Ross says "the light it is over there". That light is the one emitted by the Anglerfish. 6.) I think it's also possible when Catherine uploaded herself again to the Ark she could have overwritten her previous self. 7.) The Carthage theory seems pretty reaching to me. I mean of all the people they could bring back, why would they bring back simon? 8.) The point you made about the human face on the anglerfish, the viper fish also have the human face on the top of their heads. It seems like it is more like the WAU's way of "making" more humans.

23:35 is the best summarization of the whole 'coin toss' some people find it hard to wrap their heads around. It's just a change of perspective, a meta thing the game does because the 'new' Simons are what progresses the story. The game follows them like a cameraman in a movie follows the part of tue shot where there's action. The only 'coin toss' there is is the one that decides which of the copies survives/gets to progress (and that isn't really random chance, it's the result of the 'old' copy's actions) and not which of the bodies the 'real' version will 'inhabit'.

I will never experience anything similar to SOMA, this is truly a piece of art. Thank you for bringing this out so more people can get to know this fantastic game. Great content, I really like your voice as well.

SOMA is the scariest video game in existence to me. it's like the developers specifically set out to make a game that would terrify me in particular and make it so i would never be able to stop thinking about it. this game literally haunts me every moment of my life and i'm so glad it exists

Fun Fact - this game was one of the inspirations for a small part of the animated series, Centaurword. The show takes place in an obnoxiously whimsical magical world where the inhabitants have a plethora of absurd magical abilities. One of these is to "shoot tiny versions of yourself from your hooves". These tiny versions invariably run away screaming moments after being created. This, the creator of the show revealed, is because they are _exact_ duplicates of the orginal, including all memories up until the moment the tiny version was created. This immediately causes an existential crisis, since it is clear to them that they are but copies of a real person, and will of course remember all the previous times 'they' blithely created tiny versions of themselves in the past. Oh and yes, the tiny versions also have the power to create even tinier versions of themselves. Fans of the show will know (or will just now be realising) there is something else in the show that was clearly influenced by Soma, but that's major spoiler territory, so I'm not mentioning it here.

Dude I genuinely thought nobody had heard of this masterpiece of a game. I remember when I first got xbox gamepass, I fell down the rabbit hole of this game and have ever since been in love with it

I have sympathy for the WAU. By the end of the game you can see how much it wants to preserve life, but just doesn’t know how. But in a matter of months it made Simon I’m sure I can improve much more if we give it time.

For me, the idea of our consciousness being inside of a computer is both incredible and scary at the same time. On one hand, we preserve ourselves and allow our minds to live on for thousands or even millions of years. On the other hand, it does not preserve the true us, and our minds are susceptible to torture, data extraction and manipulation. What use does preserving ourselves even serve? Is it selfish? Should we just accept death and eternal darkness because our existence could be entirely meaningless through some perspective? SOMA poses so many philosophical questions, it's life-changing for some people. I have thought of philosophy in the past but SOMA is truly what has peaked my interest in it the most. I'm not sure if these questions even have a right answer, I think it's all about just what makes us feel most comfortable with the unknown future.

The freaking silent BZZ sound on 43:12 got me of guard. It sounds like my door bell and it's late night right now

The idea of copying consciousnesses showed up in invincible and I got immediate flashbacks to the events of this game

One thing I didn't get was how the mockingbirds were treated by the game. Both in lore and in every in game encounter, they are always treated like a simple roadblock, just malfunctioning equipment to be destroyed or cleared away. Why were none of them ever helped or treated as an opportunity to revive a dead crewmate? I get they were dangerous and delusional but it's like nobody even tried. There should have at least been something to show the player why this wouldn't have worked or why the only option was getting rid of them.

found you through a shoutout from Mcnasty! he just made a whole Soma video and shouted this video out at the end. love this iceberg! u got a new sub

Ive been waiting for a soma iceberg, Thank you for making this It was great!

I don't understand why people think the WAU isn't scary because it's technically not conscious. I disagree, I think it's ten times scarier because of it. The WAU knows its objective, but lacks the ability to understand things like nuance or context. It only knows that it needs to preserve human life, *_by any means possible._* It does not have the capacity to care about the will or welfare of said humans.

The algorithm blessed me by suggesting your vid, and it’s great work! I watched a play through of it a few years ago, and it was intriguing. The goal of sending human minds into space in a simulation actually matches another RU-vidr’s talk about how humans might- in the far far future-handle the posited ending of the universe. Running a simulation of reality in a giant computer at ridiculously slow speed on what energy has been hoarded as the galaxy cools. As an aside, Simon not understanding being copied both annoyed me, and later struck me as denial; he did know, but refused to accept it.

Wow, I literally read a SOMA iceberg yesterday night for my nth playthroguh, and here you are putting out tthis vid at the same time! Guess I’ll dive through it again, there is so much to love about the game, and almost always something to learn, so many details… I’m here for the theories though… time to dig in

Not necessarily a theory, but an interesting thought I had. Throughout the game, when Simon is being chased or is hiding, you hear his heartbeat and heavy breathing. Simon mentions to Catherine during one of their very deep convos that he is talking, but has no mouth. It is really fascinating to me to think about how his human brain (the scan) functions with a robotic body/corpse - or for that matter how any of our brains would be able to handle controlling a body that is not ours. Is the heartbeat and breathing just a figment of his imagination? Muscle memory for his brain? Kind of like how in a nightmare, you can often "hear" yourself screaming even though it is an illusion. I don't understand how his scan controls his body, especially since the way his original brain would have learned to control his body (electrical impulses) is not accessible if he is a robot or in a dead body. Does the structure gel somehow connect the two? Miracle goop indeed. Part of me also wonders if this idea explains why Simon appears to be, well, like you said simple. Some things just go over his head. If his brain scan is conditioned to working one way (with his original human body), but is then put into a whole new system, it would take some time to adapt. But it seems that Simon's brain easily adapts to his new body, (running, jumping, swimming, and handling objects with ease). And he also handles his situation extremely well in my opinion(staying relatively calm and carrying out tasks, asking questions, etc...) Almost too well.. In my personal life, when I am in high stress situations, I go into autopilot. I think this is what is happening to Simon's brain scan. Even though he denies it later on, he really has convinced himself that is is the real Simon. This is why I think that while he is emotional throughout the game, he never really appears sad or grieved for his original self. Especially as the game progresses. I think this reiterates Sarang's theory, that the longer your copy exists and has experiences differing from yours, that it becomes it's own identity, separate from its prototype. I always wondered why Simon was so angry about the transition from Simon II to III, but then never mentioned it again afterwards. It proves the point that as he existed for longer as a copy, he grew apart from his source, and his scan convinced himself that he was the "realest", for lack of a better term, Simon. I actually don't know where this was going and I know it is all over the place so sorry. SOMA will do that to ya. Also, thanks for this amazing video. Subscribed. Glad to see that people are still discussing and fanboying over this absolute masterpiece.

I always thought the real winner was the simon that stays in the suit. The ark is purgatory, a thousand years of nothing besides waiting for the batteries to run out, trapped with a handful of people and nothing to work towards. But back in the real world, the wan made simon, and simon made another. Nothing besides plot is stopping him from making more robot bodies and loading them with more scanned people, walking all the way out of the ocean and rebuilding life as ever improving androids. Might look ugly but beats living as a Tamagotchi for a hundred lifetimes. There's no difference between the ark and Wan dreamers, besides the added horror of knowing you're in a dream on the ark

The point of the "Coin Toss" is that, from a third party perspective you can observe the timeline of "You" as a path in space time. When "You" are copied that path branches. It's a coin toss which branch "You" end up on, but both branches exist concurrently. The "You" that becomes the copy looks back along its path and says "I made it, I'm here" and the "You" that doesn looks back along its path and says "I didn't make it, I'm not there". The coin toss then is merely a question of who you are after the branch: the version who won, or the version who lost. The version who lost goes on to experience whatever terrible fate you were trying to avoid, the version who won gets whatever it is you sought to gain. It is inherently unethical, as a fully sapient and sentient person will die to get you what you want. The reason the Dr. wanted to convince people to kill themselves during the transfer was to spare them the indignity of being the "loser" of the coin toss. They still, of course, always lose, but they don't have to face it.

Amazing Video! I have no clue why I'm so addicted to finding out more of this game but you hit all those points I always wondered about! THANK YOU

Marvelous video. Makes me feel similarly to experiencing SOMA for the first time with all the information presented and covering things I wasn't even fully aware of. I wonder what lies in Frictional's next attempt at a sci-fi SOMA-like game.

Just got back into SOMA recently so this is literally perfect timing lol

The whole game can be explained as being from the perspective of Simon 3. Simon 3 has the memories of Simon 2 who has the memories of simon 1. In the end of the game we still are simon 3 because the perspective does not change. This is similar to the omphalos theory or commonly known as last thursdayism. This theory implies that we could have been popped into existence on a random day with our memories of having lived way before that without essentially having existed before that moment. Simon 3 comes into existence the exact moment that his memories are scanned and copied into the new body but he feels as if he was simon 2.

So, I don't think Catherine manipulated Simon, but I disagree with the fandom wide decision that Simon is just an idiot. First off, you have to remember that Simon is copied from the very firstest prototype brain scanner. His brain scan is so simple compared to later ones that it's used as a template to create simple AI from, simple AI that programmers would practice their skills with. Simon has woken up many many times before the penultimate awakening at Omicron. This is why the WAU chose him. His simple prototypical primitive brain scan can't think as hard as later, much better copies. And the WAU had a laboratory full of copies to chose from. Whatever else the WAU is, it's consistent and meticulous. That guy who was used to demonstrate how important continuity _was,_ how easy it was to overload the equipment with strong emotions like panic, also demonstrates that higher level thinking and powerful emotions are literally a threat to the equipment. Catherine also has several moments of powerful emotion and blows out her omnitool, especially at the end of the game. I think the WAU chose Simon's prototype scan because that scan has a proven track record of adaptability, modifiability, and obedience; as well as his emotions just not being strong enough to damage the absolute slapjob that was mounting a hard drive, camera, mic, and speaker on some corpse's spine and applying magic science fluid. My second, and I believe more foundational reasoning, is this: Simon was scanned with a brain injury. He was scanned with a _compromised mind._ Even though the storage medium he occupied wouldn't be damaged, he was stored in a damaged state. He might be literally incapable of making the abstract connections required to comprehend what the coin toss analogy meant, at least until his lower level processing was confronted with the visceral reality. If it feels like Simon had to be babied through a lot of comprehension by Catherine, it's because he probably literally did need that help. Because he was cloned with his brain injury. He was never healed. No fix was ever discovered. Simon isn't an idiot, he's a less capable prototype with brain damage.

Came here from McNasty. Really enjoyed your deep dive into Soma! Keep it up man

Really amazing deep dive! You further inspired me to make a video of my own about SOMA

SOMA is the game that makes me question immortality via being digitized. Like whenever i play Halo 4 and the idea of the composer being the solution to reach immortality by literally digitizing your entire body and yet leaving behind a pile of ash. You're very clearly dead, and the reconstruction is just a copy and not the original. You can't continue your current life unless it becomes possible to alter ones dna, including the dna in your brain, to be able to live forever. Your original self will die while the copied self continues and only then can you be considered immortal since your just data and can be transferred from vessel to vessel or copied again

I love SOMA so much! Super good video and honestly enjoyed it very much! This is the itch I crave with soma. Covering about everything.

I really appreciate your epilepsy warnings. Though I don't suffer from this condition, my eyes are still very sensitive to intense light; so, thank you

I don't think Catherine is manipulative, she just has had a lot more time to understand and come to terms with how scanning works. Things that bother Simon wouldn't bother her. She knows that the version of her in the omnitool will never get to be on the ARK and doesn't seem to mind. She doesn't really get Simon's perspective but I don't know if that's manipulation, exactly.

BABE WAKE UP, NEW SOMA VIDEO ANALYSIS

I know a lot of ppl find ross or the blind dude much scarier, but the robot girl part where you are forced to basically stand next to her was the part I had to stop playing

The file on a computer analogy is actually wrong. The file is not erased and copied elsewhere, the file stays in the same place. The thing that is changed is a sort of file index which has information where the file is in the logical folder structure. The files on the drive are just spread all over.

This game truly captured me when I first experienced it, I'm so glad someone is talking about this work of art

finally, a good iceberg on my favorite game. good video man

Amazing work dude. It's the most memorable and more carefully thought out game I've ever played. Just fantastic.

babe wakeup new saad banger just dropped !!

That's a really good video! 👍 I have a few additions: 57:30 - In game files for subtitles you can find lines stating that initially there were WAU flowers beside the Robot Suit and Carl-2. By using which you could kill guys all by yourself (probably you could also drain Amy, but I don't recall that for sure). 1:06:26 - While most people consider Ross' and fleshers' teleportations to be real, I would say they just obscure your sense of vision (aka cameras) so you don't see them. Proofs: 1. There's no mention of any teleport-tech within the world; 2. Fleshers' whole mechanic is about you seeing them; 3. Ross just loves to mess with electronics; 4. Ross didn't warped out of his cell, he was standing in it for the whole Omicron exploration period, and then broke out to follow Simon. p.s. Yeah, and while dragging Simon Ross knocks him out with EMPs (internationally or not? Depends on who you ask)

As messed up as what the Wau did is, I genuinely have a very hard time calling it a villain. It's just doing what it's made to do. Plus it brought Simon back. And it did end up preserving humanity in that way, in a sense. Maybe that was it's goal with him, it just took some time to figure that out.

phenomenal video!!!!! was honestly hoping there'd be a soma iceberg one day, and this takes the cake!!! soma should absolutely be talked abt more, id always wished there'd be remaster of it someday!! anywho, fantastic work!!!

I've been waiting for a charter of myths for a frictional game for a while, good to see this.

20:08 If you unplug a machine without it updating or saving there is a chance it will reset or not save its data. Imagine Simon building his new body after god knows what happened only to reset himself

Explaining it as copy and paste / cut and paste helped me fully understand it, thank you

Simon 3 can't understand that Simon 4 will be created and he will remain on earth because he IS a human, with a human conciousnes and all the safety mechanisms involved. Human brain cannot trully understand such thing as being copied. I mean, you can learn about it, accept it,but after the procedure you will still be borderline insane ignoring the possibility of existing of the second you. And if the situation involves survival- no chance. You will not accept it. That is why Simon 3 reacts the way he does. Catherine was there for a hundred years, and for him all this expirience is new

cant they make a movie about this older game already? its a ten out of ten story.

SOMA really is a piece of art, absolute timeless masterpiece. Man I'd be so hyped for a deeper dive into the universe, seeing what may have unfolded on other stations or humanity's struggle on the ark, trying to somehow get another shot at interacting with the real world. But I'm also scared that could mess it up, so maybe just keep it the way it is. ^^

The comment about the DLC not adding to meaningfully to the game: I cant say I understand this. The reason why folks wanted more SOMA wasnt entirely due to the transhumanism or questions of the value of life. For me, I really enjoyed the world they built. I want to know more about the fate of the WAU given the lack of multiple humans. I want to see more of the original science teams the moments after the impact. I want to know about the now long dead people in how they were before the psychosis took over.

thanks for making a video on one of the best games ive ever experienced! love that we can keep a (almost) decade old game relevant

Loved this, SOMA is still garnering this much attention, We need more games at the bottom of the sea. It would also be nice to get some information on the other Carthage bases. I feel like there could be a whole new game with those other bases pre-comet or post-comet exploring the WAUs creation or its end point for humanity.

When I first watched a playthrough of SOMA, it changed me genuinely for the better- I'm not sure what happened in my mind, but it knocked me out of a dreadful routine and started me towards betterness

Hey, I'm only 16 minutes in, but just wanted to drop this comment early: Your voice is very nice and soothing, perfect for telling stories such as this! Not only that, your audio mixing on the voiceover as well as the video in general is very pleasing to the ears. No sudden pops or anything like that, perfect balance on the levels. Nice job! Thank you for mixing it well, and congratulations on the voice :)

1 GItS did this same game themes but way back and went above and beyond. Side note bioshock did the whole memory flashbacks awhile back with adam. 2. A great dlc would've been if they brought back dead relatives in a similar setting. I wanna say the idea of copies of yourself is the same as having twins. Early on you live together and hence think similar. It's not till you diverge later on that you both change. After all twins share 99% DNA. More copies = triplets or more.

What’s messed up is how these researchers kept on making copies of themselves and putting them in simulations freaking the hell out of the copies. Then basically gaslighting them like “calm down, you’re alright” and if you don’t comply with their testing then they just reboot your copy again like psychopath

the interesting thing with the coin toss is that one crazy theory out there that says that we cant know whether the universe was literally created a second ago with all our memories and history already part of the newly created universe. so winning the coin toss is just suddenly starting to exist with memory of a past before. if we were crazy out there we could say that we have been simon 4 all along and just "hallucinated outside of time" that we lived the whole journey, but that starts messing with the perception of time and shit so anyway

noone understands why this is part of my top 3 favorite games of all time. the experience was PERFECTION

Awesome freaking work man, thank you so much.

Brother keept saying how everytime something mildly scary happened he sharted bricks and stopped playing for a while. BASED.

I mean... technically speaking there are movies/shows that DO play with the idea, like Star Trek. And you're right - it did hit less hard for me than in this game. I will say that the fact that Simon is kind of.. willfully ignoring the situation does make it worse. Like, for myself, if I was the person living in the moment up to the point where I was making the clone, I'd know that I had already lost 'the coin toss.' I'm literally making a copy of myself to live on in the hopes that some fragment of myself manages to accomplish something more than I was capable of. At the same time, that still raises the question of: 'would I kill my past self?' And it's not because I would only want one of myself around, although that would be my preference. It's because there literally are a finite amount of 'people' around, and would I want to survive in such a lonely existence? I think that I would let my past self live, and even write a note stating that I would try to come back if I succeeded, because again, if I'm 'Simon 3,' I'd know that I'm already screwed in my present iteration. Simon 4 gets to live the good life (hopefully). Mission accomplished, everyone's living in a digital form. ALLLLL of that being stated, the technology that they use is a bit... handwavy, as the way that it works for them with the Wau is human/robotic hybridization to some degree. That's why Simon's so successful compared to the other robots. That's why, theoretically, you can't just transfer over to a new suit. But I mean... why would this technology even work this way in the first place? Simon 2 being a mistake the Wau managed to make is at least a bit understandable, but I don't really understand how Catherine's able to change things to work well enough with the Wau that it works out for Simon 3. At that point, I would have expected it to be a primarily synthetic (IE, technological) lifeform, and thus at that point, it should be able to actually be transferrable.

34:19 This guy misunderstood my comment about copy-pasting Computers actually just rename the path when moving files, thats how you can move one big file to a different folder without it taking much time, when copying it would take a long time

*Samael from Discord here* Thank you so much, I enjoyed a lot your explanations, quality content such as your Iron Lung iceberg deep dive

Just rewatched Markiplier's playthrough of SOMA for like the 4th time. Appreciated the reference to BubbleButt

Youre channel is underated you deserve more subscribers for youre videos in my opinion your videos are interesting and fun to listen to and watch

One thing that stands out to me is that if they have the technology to do all of this stuff, then they clearly have the same tech to thrive in space. So I’m assuming the most powerful people are still alive in space and that someone if anyone on said space ship was able to make it to earth to start the process of the Ark project or at least went to look for something down there but was killed before he could make it back.

The part at 50:58 caught me off guard and made me shit my pants

1:03:31 This is really intriguing because after all, Simon 2 had to put together Simon 3's body himself.

I feel like if she left Simon 2 awake and let Simon fully realize what “the coin toss” meant he wouldn’t have had such an explosive reaction at the end.

Then at every moment in time you are quote on quote losing the coin toss. Every moment you are mostly deleted and compressed into a memory, then you are replaced with a copy that has that memory. This was his whole point. Are you the same you as a second ago? If so then you are indeed transferred. If not then you are already a copy of a copy of a copy. Even if you don't buy that line of reasoning, every five years 99% of you is replaced. So why not become a copy with a better life? Accept continuity or not, you can win the coin toss even if you lose at the same time.

I loved this game.. one of those games I went in knowing nothing about and played all the way through. One of the only games I’ve played where I just sat there staring at the credits at the end just thinking about what just happened and was really in awe of it. I really appreciate the extra lore and info

This was a really great video about one of my favorite games. Thanks for making it.

The voice of the person in the Dunbat sounds exactly like Brandon Wan. It also has the same animosity towards Catherine as Brandon.

Came here from Mcnasty's video! I had never heard of Soma before today but now i just really want to get into this lore.

Didnt expect a great video like this nearly 10 yyears after the release of that wonderful game ❤❤❤

34:34 In actuality, moving files on computers doesn't erase and remake them on another region on the disk. If they are on the same disk, the filesystem has pointers that give the folder structure specific physical addresses on the disk. If you move a file from a folder into another folder, the pointer to the data just gets renamed to the new file structure.

Damn you and your bloody jumpscares! Very decent iceberg video however, alongside with the Iron Lung iceberg video. I really like SOMA, it always be one of my favourites, it has a great, immersive atmosphere, but i love it when there are a ton of new infos, facts or conspiracies wich expand a universe.

50:30 really enjoyed this bit. I was wondering "wait, is this actual real-time footage from the game, so an enemy could appear at any time?"